Month: July 2011

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Journey Without Maps- Graham Greene

1st edition cover (Doubleday, Doran)
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Journey Without Maps– Graham Greene is a travel novel, chronicling the author’s experience of his four-week walking tour from Freetown, Sierra Leone through to Grand Bassa, Liberia in 1935. The ‘without maps’ refers to the fact that at the time the only available cartography of the area was from the British, whose maps of the area were based entirely on guess-work, and so were just wrong; or else the Americans, who when they weren’t sure, simply left the area blank. He describes these as being akin to the maps of the times past when the unknown areas we labelled ‘here be monsters’.

His aim, in going on his expedition, is to see for himself one of the last corners of the world ‘uncorrupted’ by western civilisation. He is also keen to recreate the experience of John Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness. On his journey he travels with his cousin Barbara Greene, and four guides recruited from Freetown, Sierra Leone. He also has with a number of ‘porters’ that he hires at various villages along the way, to carry them through the jungle.

When they first set out, Greene is scathing of the negative impact that colonisation has had on the people of Western Africa. He talks bout the place having all the short-comings of ‘civilisation’,with almost none of the benefits. He also criticises the abject poverty that the people are allowed to live in, while their colonial overlords make little or no effort to do anything about it.

At first, he is enamoured with the hospitality and the general nature of the people of Liberia. He soon realises that the people are as fascinated by him, as he is by them. He has the privilege of witnessing the various rites and rituals that fill the lives of these people. However, the deeper he goes, and the less the people are touched by any semblance of white influence, the novelty begins to wear off.  The rats, illness, having to referee the constant squabbles between the porters (who come from different regions) and just the responsibility of being ultimately responsible for the lives of all those travelling with him, take their toll.

Greene has a very dry style of writing, and may not be for everyone. However, it is definitely worth persevering with. This is a terrific travelogue. It is a fascinating account of a trip through a part of the world that, let’s face it, most of us will never see for ourselves. I love that he starts out with romantic notions about the place, but that the reality of it all very quickly pushes that aside, and he is very honest about his experiences. He is able to convey his experience in a way that makes you feel like you’re there with him. When toward the end he arrives at a town that has a truck that can carry them the last part of the journey (bringing it all to an end that much sooner), we feel the same joy and elation.

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The Tiger’s Wife- Téa Obreht

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht is the story of Natalia, a young doctor in the former Yugoslavia, who upon learning the news that her beloved grandfather has died, remembers the stories he had told her throughout her life. The main stories she returns to are the story of the ‘deathless man’ and the story of the ‘tiger’s wife’.

This is a wonderful book, so full of life and whimsy, but always in the background is the tragedy of loss and hardship that comes from a land that has been if not at war, then at least preparing for war, for most of the last hundred years or more. I found this book by accident, and when I realised that it had as its backdrop the Balkan Wars that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, I was hesitant, expecting it to be depressing. I am so glad that I ignored my hesitation.

While the various wars that have beset the area are a near constant feature of the landscape, it is never allowed to intrude on the telling of the stories. If anything, the book is about how life continues despite the horror of war, and that human beings always find ways to cope.

It is a country where superstition rules. To begin with we share the frustration of Natalia (and her grandfather) with the prevailing superstition that seems to grip the people, refusing to make way for reason. In many ways this superstition exacerbates that tensions between the different religions and creeds that make up the Balkan people. However, we eventually come to understand that superstition can serve a useful function in providing the survivors of horror, the means to go on.

This is Obreht’s first novel, and at the age of 26, she has already set the literary world on fire. She has won several awards about the place for her short stories, and The Tiger’s Wife was the Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011. It is with great anticipation that I look forward to seeing what she produces next.

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Breath- Tim Winton

    Breath by Tim Winton came to me highly acclaimed. It is a first person memoir of a man, Bruce Pike, remembering his youth growing up in the Margaret River area of Western Australia. He has since become a paramedic, and arriving at the scene of an apparent teenage suicide brings back memories of his own misspent youth.

The central theme is about fear. About meetings fears, conquering fears and most importantly learning that fear itself shouldn’t be feared or shunned. As the name suggests, it is also about breath, and how through most of our lives we breathe without being conscious that we are even doing it, but when breathing becomes difficult for whatever reason, it brings home just how important it is to sustaining life. The exhilaration that comes with regaining the ability to breathe comes from the joy of realising just how precious, and precarious life can be.

Pike grew up, during the 1970’s, in a small town that revolved around the local sawmill. He befriends another boy, known as Ivan ‘Loonie’ Loon, who has ‘never had the remotest thing in common…before we realized that we’d each independently perfecting the art of causing riverside panic.’ The two boys challenge each other to perform escalating feats of danger. This continues after the two boys discover what will become their life long passion, surfing.

Along the way they meet Sando, a retired professional surfer, and his wife, Eva. Sando, in his mid-thirties, befriends the boys and becomes a guru in the ways of surfing, and life. His philosophy is the life should never be ordinary. That a man must always be looking to push past the boundaries in order to truly live. That taking yourself to the physical limit, where life itself is in the balance, is the only way to get the most out of life.

The novel raises many important issues. The relationship and influence that Sando and his wife have over Bruce and Loonie, without any apparent awareness of any responsibility that that influence requires of them is at time quite frightening. From time to time, while telling his story, Pike reflects on the inappropriate nature of their mini-cult, and how the ramifications of his time with them impacts on his whole life.

This is brilliant book, richly deserving of the praise that has been heaped on it. It’s not an easy book to read though, it tackles some difficult subject matter and themes. It is worth the effort however. There are so many facets to this book, I am certain that I missed many of them on the first reading, and that this is a novel that needs to be read and re-read again and again to appreciate it properly.

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A Darkness at Sethanon- Raymond E Feist

The Riftwar Saga
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  A Darkness at Sethanon by Raymond E Feist is the third and final instalment of the Riftwar Saga. In it we have the final show down between Prince Arutha (aka The Lord of the West) and Murmandamus.

A year has passed since the Prince and his supporters defeated the Brotherhood of Darkness, and restored Princess Anita to full health. However, it is becoming evident that for the bad guys, that was simply a minor set back and that only defeat at an apparently pre-ordained time and place will decided the thing once and for all. The Prince, with some help from his friends manages to sneak out of Krondor and set off on his quest.

Meanwhile we catch-up with Pug who at the end of the previous was still in Kelewan, in search of help to defeat ‘The Enemy’, that he and the rest of the Assembly are convinced are ultimately behind the impending catastrophe set to befall the known (and unknown universe). After a year with the eldar cousins of the elves of Midkemia learning more about the nature of magic, he returns to his home world to team up with his childhood friend Tomas to search for Marcos the Black, a mission that will see them touring the universe on the back of a dragon learning more about themselves and coming to terms with their power.

The whole thing culminates in the final battle, that has been where we were headed all along.

If it sounds like I was underwhelmed by this book, that is true. After the first book, Magician, I was expecting much more.  Magician after all is one of the best, and most rich and complex examples of the fantasy genres that I have read in a long while. However, while this does what you expect, the quest, the magic, the ultimate battle at the end, it fails to do  much more than deliver the stock standard formula. The thing I loved most about the first book, was the incredible depth that was given the all the characters, and their relationships with each other. However, in this (and also in the second book), we rarely go much below the surface of any of the characters. Even the main characters have very little meat on them. As for the women, they are all but invisible, shunted off to some ‘safe’ corner of the story to be brought back at the end, when the blokes are finished saving the world, for a celebratory shag.

However, having said all that the book is okay, for what it is. Readers will be satisfied by the conclusion, with all the main threads tied up neatly. There is plenty in the way of action, blood and gore to keep things interesting and it isn’t an unpleasant way to pass the time.

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